Free speech confused.

By Abigail Clarke: Contributing Content Blogger 

If there is one thing that boils me it's people using the argument of free speech to justify the behaviours of cyber haters attacking others with their hate. This is offensive to any victim and I've no issue saying it's an outright stupid thing to say. Even though many countries do not have the right to free speech embedded in their constitutions, the concept is still pulled out of the bag by cyber attackers everywhere regardless of country. These people feel completely justified jabbing and ripping at others through the internet unbelievably feeling they have the right to do so.  If confronted, these people claim the right to freely say what they like as if there is an implicit right to free speech everywhere, but more than that they equate a right to free speech as an open license to harm others to the extent of death. 

Right of free speech is one of the most bastardised and contorted justifications used on the internet today. Younger generations are misunderstanding the original intent of the concept. In the United States, right to free speech was a protection put in place to allow citizens to openly criticise the government without retaliation. It has now somehow morphed into individuals thinking they have the right to wield abusive and hateful cyber attacks on whomever they choose for whatever reason they deem appropriate. This is not restricted to just within the United States. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, states “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. Several countries such as in Africa, India, Australia, and many others, have specific free speech laws extended to their citizens. This ingrained misconception of free speech has become a universal standard by which cyber harassment is condoned worldwide. 

The right of free speech and the freedom to attack others with hateful poisonous language, need to be distinguished from one another and then enforceable laws in place to prevent the damaging effects of online hate attacks. 

The Free Speech Cop Out

By David Simms, Senior Contributor

When it gets down to it, the providers of social media platforms are ultimately the gatekeepers of cyber harassment. Nearly all cyber harassment occurs through these mediums whether it be Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google, and others. Technically, these providers have the power to bring internet offenses to a stop yet they do not. Granted, they are making some attempt at abating the problem but clearly not enough. All providers state in their policies that they take cyber harassment very seriously but are limited by what content can be removed from their sites. 

At the core of this argument is right to free speech. But in a vast majority of cases, free speech has nothing to do with the offenses being committed. The fact is, these providers have the ability to filter intentionally offensive and damaging material before it is published. They also have the ability to promptly remove any content from their sites. There seems to be an intentional obfuscation between free speech and outright abuse. Naturally if someone is the recipient of an online hate campaign, they would want the false and negative content to be taken down immediately. Because content can be seen by literally millions of people instantly, delaying any action to address removal or prevention, is just plain irresponsible. The obvious question becomes, ‘how would the owners and executives controlling these sites deal with abusive content posted about themselves or their families?’  The obvious answer would be, ‘very quickly and thoroughly’ and would likely never even be published in the first place.  Ask yourself if you have ever seen abusive cyber postings of anyone associated with a social media platform.  The fact is, those running these sites are in control of the content and would never allow false and harassing comments to remain.  Why the double standard?  Social media sites need to implement that same policy for all users that they see fit to implement for themselves.